


Karkat + Lobsters

by Broba



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comedy, Crazy, Food, Gunplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This kinkmeme prompt was so deliciously unhinged that I had to give it a go, and before I knew it a simple idea had demanded several extra characters be involved.</p><p>Dave and John decide to show Karkat a little of the high life at a fancy restaurant. And what could be a fancier dinner then lobsters?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karkat + Lobsters

The city was filthy black with soot and night as their car drew up. Dave was driving his brother's shitty ride that night, he had been trusted with the keys for once- more because his brother wanted to get up to something no doubt horrible and wanted Dave out of the way. It had been John who suggested they all step out like a bunch of sirs to the swankiest of restaurants to show Karkat some high living human-style. The troll hated the idea intensely and had been saying so the entire journey, but John had largely learned to tune it out like an angry curse-filled background static. The only way to shut him up had been to allow him to choose the radio station and for inscrutable troll reasons Karkat insisted that they listen to right-wing talk radio the whole way. The more upset the callers got, and the more strident the blowhard presenter was in responding to them, the more he seemed to like it. John hadn't thought Karkat was particularly political and when he questioned Karkat on it the troll had just stared blankly at him for a moment and turned away shaking his head. By the time they pulled up the fifth caller was ranting about how gay marriage was only the latest nail in the coffin of Real America, Karkat was just nodding and licking his lips repeatedly.  
"Welp," said Dave, "we're here. I still say we should have done Taco Bell. Shit's good there, man."  
He reached for the antiquated radio knob and Karkat hissed and slapped his hand.  
"Fuck! The fuck, man?"  
"Wait a minute."  
"What?"  
"It's getting to the good bit."  
Dave shared a look with John who was in the back seat.  
"The good bit?" John asked.  
"Yes yes hang on,"  
The radio continued to burble until, inevitably, the caller brought it all back to why everything that was wrong in Real America was thanks to Obama.  
"Yes-s-s-s," Karkat hissed, turning off the radio at last.  
"The hell was that all about?" Dave opened his door.  
Karkat stepped out. "One day you got to tell me about this Obama, he's a total-"  
John saw what was happening and managed to clap a hand over Karkat's mouth furiously mere instants before he announced to a public street that president Obama was a black slut.  
  
The restaurant was a Mexican\Chinese modern fusion affair, the latest thing to hit the town. It had been open for three weeks and had a massive waiting list to get in- Dave had pulled some of his ineffable strings to arrange a small table for them in a corner. They strutted past the queue outside the velvet rope and Dave exchanged an odd handshake with the doorman that turned into a two-way combination hug and back-slap. He nodded grimly and opened the door to them  
  
The bar had a dance floor near the entrance just past the cloakroom with a live band on show. They were a four piece mariachi act in full poncho and sombrero numbers doing Shanghai Reggae loud enough to make the red paper lanterns bedecked with straw donkeys shake. The boys and Karkat were dressed in their finest tuxedos, John had a baby blue two-piece with navy piping and an arrow collar under a black bow tie. John had his classic white single-breasted blazer and yachting slacks with red velvet lining, while Karkat sported a black turtle-neck under a suit that showed off three separate shades of obsidian. John tapped Dave on the chest and grinned.  
"What was that thing with the door guy? You know him?"  
"Huh? You mean Hong-Mai Chico? Sure, you don't?" Dave raised one immaculate eyebrow over the rim of his shades and John just laughed and shook his head.  
"Come on! I'm ready to eat!"  
  
The table was, like the rest of the joint, a perfect blend of styles and tastes. Karkat slid into the booth seat without a word and started drumming his fingers on the tablecloth nervously, unsure of how this was supposed to work.  
"Okay assholes, you got me here. So what happens now, or do we just soak up the multicolour ambience till we forget sustenance and just vomit over each other instead?"  
"Karkat! Gross!"  
"Dude, be cool. I got friends here, I don't need you two jokers making me look bad."  
Karkat glared at Dave and was about to retort when John reached under the table and gave his hand a squeeze. He sighed and made the odd little head-shake that trolls did to indicate equanimity, "fine, I will not cause one of your human scenes," he said sullenly.  
Dave nodded grimly.  
"So, Dave, where's the menu?" John grinned hopefully.  
Dave just sighed dramatically, "see, this is why I wanted Taco Bell. It's more your speed, Egbert." He held up a hand and snapped a finger imperiously. The noise was instantly lost over the screaming din of Shanghai Reggae but a waiter mysteriously materialised to hand a menu to Dave's waiting hand. He opened it and passed it along the table to John who stared at the incomprehensible line of fusion dishes with exotic names and bizarre descriptions.  
"Oh, uh, okay then Dave, what do you reckon?"  
"Well, what are you in the mood for?"  
"How about this- the dim-sum enchilada sounds nice."  
"Too tourist-y."  
"Cantonese Chalupa?"  
"Urgh, please."  
"Gorditas Char Siu?"  
"Egbert you're embarrassing yourself. You're bringing shame upon your family."  
"Argh!" Karkat yelled, "will you two just get a room? And then fuck in it? Because that is clearly where this little performance art piece is heading. One of your filthy human copulation cubicles."  
"Karkat!"  
"Dude!"  
"Give me the ordering device."  
Dave wordlessly passed over the menu and Karkat glared at it balefully.  
"Fine, I have decided."  
"You have?" John looked up hopefully.  
"Indeed." Karkat tossed the menu casually away from the table and the waiter reappeared to grab it, "we will have the most expensive of human foods, in human currency terms. Three of whatever that is."  
"Ah, an excellent choice señor," the waiter bowed briefly, "I will fetch the-"  
"Do not bother me with details, service drone! Bring me feeding implements and the nutrient-vat, let the time of fooding begin!"  
The waiter left, because there was little to say to that. John stared, and Dave nodded approvingly.  
  
As it happened, Karkat had ordered lobster- and in Mexican\Chinese fusion style the customer was required to select the beast upon which they would dine. A massive water tank was wheeled out to their table on a wheeled trolley pushed by four waiters, who carried nets and grabbers. The creatures themselves floated languidly amid their stylishly cuboid rocks. Karkat stared aghast at the lobsters and immediately got to his feet, pressing his nose to the glass while the boys watched on in bemusement.  
"Karkat? What's wrong, never seen a lobster before?" John grinned toothily.  
Karkat muttered something under his breath and didn't move, one hand was up stroking the glass. John and Dave glanced at each other worriedly, this was starting to look like one of those situations where something incredibly deep and meaningful to a troll had just happened for no reason that made any sense to humans.  
"Karkat?"  
"Dude, stop macking on the tank, man."  
"Crab dad..." he sighed. John saw to his horror a single carmine tear fall down Karkat's cheek.  
John stood up and patted him on the back, laughing nervously at the increasingly nonplussed waiters, "ah, it's okay, it's just his dad was a crab," he laughed unconvincingly, it sounded even worse said aloud then it had in his head.  
"Crabdad!"  
"Karkat, please, stop saying that," John was looking around nervously.  
"Craaaab da-ha-ha-haaad!"  
"Christ he's melting down," Dave hissed, "Karkat! just pick a lobster and let's eat, dude!"  
"WHAT," Karkat span on him, "did you just say, human?"  
"Wrong thing to say Dave,"  
"Ya, you think? Oh crap he's got a number two claw pick!"  
Karkat was now waving an item like an oversized dental implement threateningly and the waiters were backing away slowly, murmuring to each other in Chinese. Karkat vaulted onto the table and from there up ontop of the tank itself, raising his arms and cackling madly.  
"Now my crustacean comrades, taste the bitter salty tang of FREEDOM! Away!"  
  
The Shanghai Reggae pounded in the background, as the singer belted out a crowd pleaser about a rude bwoy wid de riddim in he heart he call him Leroy Chang. The beat pulsed, the steel banjo twanged and the shamisen plucked.  
  
No one moved. Karkat glanced around, still holding the heroic pose. The Chinese waiters muttered and called him various Spanish epithets. Below, the lobsters floated lazily and occasionally flicked their eyestalks left and right.  
"Away!"  
"Karkat..."  
"Seriously dude,"  
"Away?"  
"Please Karkat-"  
"I'm so hungry. I can actually feel my abs getting more cut by the minute."  
"Away."  
"They're all looking at us!"  
"Would you. Please! Just pick a lobster. Then we'll eat its' ass and you'll laugh and we'll all laugh and maybe get home before-" Dave checked his watch, "-shit man how long were we on the road? It's already just about twelve."  
  
In fact, by this point the hour had just turned. As if on cue the band stopped playing with a long last trill of banjo and silence descended. The sudden lack of sound was perpetuating and growing, a lack of noise that spread across the restaurant like an oppressive smothering blanket. All eyes turned to the stage as the lead mariachi took the mike in close and whispered.  
 _"Como estan, Jackie Chan,"_  
As one the room turned to the stage.  
"Who's this douche bag?" Muttered Dave.  
The singer and his backup threw their sombreros into the air at the same time, on the stroke of twelve, and with a swirl of brightly patterned cloth four ponchos were cast aside to reveal glistening black trenchcoats and hastily positioned fedoras. Dave gasped and clutched John's arm.  
"The Midnight Crew!"  
"You know them?"  
Dave raised an eyebrow over the rim of his shades, "you don't?"  
Spades Slick stepped forwards along with his crew to the edge of the stage and brandished a revolver to a chorus of screams.  
"Anyone who isn't out of here in five second flat," he announced dramatically, "is about to get Midnight Crewcified."  
The diminutive Clubs Deuce leaned around from behind Slick and shook a tiny fist like a lump of coal, "yeah!"  
  
Patrons screamed and ran for the exits as Slick fired into the air. The Chinese waiters advanced on the stage at a trot, pulling guns and knives on the crew. Above the crowd where a balcony level encircled the restaurant the proprietress herself, Señora Wei, stood up and raised an arm to point at Slick. She wore a pure white kimono with red cord banded around the waist from which descended a rosary, giving her a monkish air.  
"Laowai swine! How dare you- do you know who protects this house?"  
Hearts Boxcars was already unlimbering a long barrelled rocket launcher from his bass banjo case, and smirked. Slick grinned and called back to her.  
"Tell El Guapo, that Spades Slick said to eat a bag of dicks!"  
Señora Wei nodded imperiously, "kill them. Kill them!"  
"Bring it on, Elton John!"  
Then everything went all entirely to hell.  
  
Karkat trilled in panic as the bullets started flying, John grabbed his ankle and yanked him bodily off the tank, to take shelter under their table along with Dave.  
"Shit! John! You okay?"  
"Dave! How do we get out of this?"  
"I'm not leaving without them let me go!" Karkat was already squirming to get away from their hiding place.  
  
Boxcars leapt down off the stage with a roar, sending a noticeable shockwave through the floor, as he piled into a small crowd of waiters with fists flying. Deuce was following him and attacking random limbs with what appeared to John to be something unmentionable that he wielded viciously. Slick was advancing across the dance floor firing steadily. Around him piñatas, feng-sui mirrors, lanterns and carvings of Buddha exploded into debris as an elderly sommelier hiding behind a column let loose with random bursts from an Uzi.  
  
A stray bullet hit the lobster tank, drilling two neat spiderweb-fringed holes in the glass from one side to the other that immediately started to spray water. Karkat yelled something incomprehensible and leapt up to yank the cover off, and he thrust an arm in. Dave called out and surged to his feet taking the table with him and pushing it over as an impromptu barricade while John scampered over to grab Karkat.  
  
Three waiters were already laid out on the floor around Boxcars and the fourth was punching him rapidly in the midsection while Boxcars grimaced angrily. Suddenly Deuce appeared and smote the waiter around the head with his cane, felling the man.  
"Midnight Snooze, asshole!"  
  
John barrelled into Karkat and bore him away from the tank with a splash as Dave caught up to them and directed them towards the staff entrance to the rear of the room which, thanks to their inopportune table position, was the nearest exit from the growing firefight. Suddenly their way was blocked by the long tall form of none other then Diamonds Droog who had a mother-of-pearl handled silver revolver that he waved in their direction as the three fugitives screeched to a halt.  
"What's the hurry, Tim Curry?" He smirked unpleasantly.  
"Sorry," Karkat quipped as he threw a punch, "I'm in a clawful rush." His entire arm was encrusted with eight very irritable lobsters, he had a head full of rage and a fist full of angry claws of justice.  
  
They left the screaming Droog nursing a heavily bleeding face as Dave pushed open the double-doors and led the way into the back, through gouts of steam from the various wash stations and ovens, and yelling cooking staff in ubiquitous chequered pants.  
"Jeez Karkat," John shouted, "I think you really hurt that guy!"  
"Bullshit!"  
"There was blood everywhere!"  
"I dunno, a drop or two maybe."  
"Do you think we'll get in trouble?"  
"John you are so-"  
There was a resounding crack and a saucepan hanging from a ceiling rack next to them suddenly developed a neat hole. They turned slowly to see Droog framed in the doorway framed by the rising steam that swirled about dramatically, levelling his pistol at them with one hand and mopping his face with a handkerchief with the other.  
"I'ma kill all of you assholes," he snarled, "then I'ma kill everyone at the funerals!"  
"Well," sighed Karkat, flexing his lobster fist, "this is clawkward."  
There was a shout from outside, it was Slick. "Droog! Get your ass back here, we're taking this all the way up to El Guapo!"  
Droog grimaced and put up his weapon, glaring at Karkat, "next time, little man."  
  
In the upstairs back room of the restaurant where a full-on opium den was laid out, El Guapo put down his pipe and breathed out a wreath of white smoke. One of his men finished reporting what had happened, and when El Guapo made a dismissive waving gesture he nodded and collapsed from the rather nasty head wound he had been dealt by the fists of Boxcars.  
"Gentlemen," he said quietly, and as one the suited and serious looking gangsters around him all produced a series of unpleasant looking weapons ranging from machetes to hatchets to a full sized rotary machine gun. El Guapo himself got up and walked to the wall where he lifted a supremely cheap looking katana from an ugly and tasteless plywood display stand.  
  
John gasped for breath and pulled the complaining Karkat after him as Dave raced ahead, leading them through the back passages of the restaurant.  
"Where are we going Dave?" John cried.  
"Out! Away! Anywhere! It looks like the Midnight Crew are finally starting a war!"  
"A war on who?"  
Dave sighed and stopped abruptly, John almost ran into him and Karkat nearly lost a lobster, "this restaurant, it's run by... some bad people."  
Karkat frowned, "bad people?"  
"Yeah. The South Side Tong. I didn't figure we'd have any trouble, normally they run a quiet joint."  
"Dave!" John gasped, "you know these people?"  
Dave already had the eyebrow up, "you don't?"  
  
The opium den was riddled with bullets as the rotary machine gun opened up like the shout of an angry god, slicing the walls apart with the ease of a hot knife through mist. Hatchets flew, men fell screaming and clutching at grim wounds. Boxcars was manoeuvring the rocket launcher up onto his shoulder in between ducking behind a burning section of wall. El Guapo himself stood in the middle of the scrum, katana locked against the tiny blade of Slick's switchblade.  
"There's only room for one crew in this town," snarled Slick.  
"Couldn'ta said it better myself,"  
"Bring it on, Michelle Kwan!"  
  
Their battle was epic, and encompassed the entire room. They leapt and flew, spinning through the air like mating sparrows and the blistering thunderclap of their weapons meeting echoed in everyone's ears for weeks. Boxcars had been having some trouble with the rocket launcher, he hadn't bothered reading the instructions when he'd bought it and was suffering serious buyer's remorse now. He lurched out of cover and raised it, straining to aim through the tiny viewfinder. There was a deafening blast and a thick acrid gout of smoke instantly filled the room as the rocket went off and plunged straight through the back wall of the den, spiralling off into the night to explode somewhere out in the world. El Guapo took the opportunity and leapt for the hole, somersaulting into the night air.  
  
Dave fumbled with the keys, finally getting Bro's car started and they screeched out of the parking space. The parking lot behind the restaurant had a booth with a barricade blocking the way.  
"Dave!" John yelled suddenly.  
"What?"  
"We never validated parking!"  
Both Dave and Karkat shared a look and then turned as one to John in the back seat.  
"John."  
"Karkat?"  
"I'm going to add everything you just said to the enormous pile of bullshit that you have produced so far, but I have to warn you that it is growing to such epic proportions that it is developing an independent gravitational field."  
"But," John gulped, "we could get in trouble, you have to pay-"  
Suddenly, and for no reason fathomable to any of them, the entire booth and its' parking barricade was hit by a rocket propelled grenade and exploded into a million individual tiny fragments, some of which washed over the car. Dave turned on the wipers.  
"Fuck it, I'm gunnin' this shit. If anything happens to this car Bro will murder me hard enough to break the coffin in half."  
  
It was at that moment that Bro landed on the hood of the car, still holding his shitty katana, his sneakers were on fire and his shirt was coated in soot. He was also wearing a rather natty cummerbund in the colours of the Mexican flag. He calmly stepped down and walked around as Dave lowered his window.  
"Bro."  
"Dave."  
"Nice night."  
"Ain't it just. How come you ain't go to Taco Bell or some shit?"  
"Figured we'd eat somewhere classy for a change."  
Bro adjusted his shades and shrugged, leaning the back of his katana across his shoulders, "gotcha. I can recommend the soup."  
Behind them, the ornate arched fronting of the restaurant collapsed in flames.  
"but the noodles are a bit over done."  
"Need a lift?"  
Beside them, bullets ricocheted off the concrete. Bro nodded and clambered into the back alongside John who scooted over, and Dave drove the gas pedal down.  
As they raced away from the devastation Bro nodded at Karkat. "Hey, troll dude."  
"Yeah?"  
"You pay for those lobsters?"  
Karkat glanced into the collective eyestalks of his charges and shook his head, "liberated 'em in a firefight. It was pretty intense."  
"Cool."  
  
Later, as dawn broke, the four of them stood on the dockside pier as Karkat said his goodbyes to a line of bemused lobsters. The others stood at a respectful distance, finishing their tacos.  
"Well," sighed Karkat, "we haven't known each other long, but I wanted to say..." He paused to sweep his hand along a line of upraised claws, "it has been an honour, gentlemen."  
One of the lobsters swivelled an eyestalk at him.  
"Oh, sorry Margaret."  
Bro leaned over to hiss at Dave, "this gonna take long?"  
"It's an emotional moment, dude."  
"Well," added John, "I think it's all very, uh, special."  
"Oh it's special all right."  
"Dave! You know what I mean!"  
Karkat murmured to each of the lobsters as, one by one, he gently pushed them off the pier into the waters below. "Atrocious. Little Jocko. Bee-Ray. Cash Money." There were four splashes. He wiped his nose and stifled a tear, "Q-Dog. Fenderstein. Welsh Tom. Margaret," he lifted the last of them up, "I think I'll miss you most of all." He dropped her into the water, and turned away.  
Dave nudged John with an elbow, "hey, you have any idea how many lobster pots are in the bay? They're so gonna be spending the night in a seafood platter."  
"Dude! Have a little respect!"  
"Urgh fine. Next time, let's just hit the cheap ass take-out joint first, okay?"  
"Uh. Yeah, agreed."  
Karkat approached them miserably and Bro looked up. "Hey man, you done?"  
"Yeah, I'm done."  
"Cool. Let's bounce."  
"Clawsome."


End file.
